Sony Ending PlayStation Vita YouTube & Maps App Support

Early this morning, PlayStation sent out a tweet announcing that YouTube and Maps app support would be ending shortly on PlayStation Vita, with certain features of near being disabled as well.

Over on the PlayStation Support site, they detailed that the YouTube app will no longer be available for download as of today, January 28 in North America and Europe. Then, on April 20, 2015, the app will no longer be supported.

This isn’t the end of YouTube on Vita though, with Sony saying:

Users can continue to enjoy YouTube via the “Browser” application, and will be able to access their YouTube data, such as playlists and channels, by signing in to the same Google account via the “Browser” app and on other devices.

As for the Maps app and near app, “all features” of Maps are going to be disabled as part of a system software update in March 2015, with near’s ability to obtain location address or display maps getting disabled at that same time. Sony adds, “Functionalities of the applications will be removed automatically once users update their PlayStation Vita [in March]. The disablement of features will not affect gameplay.”

For a substitute, Sony suggests Google Maps:

You can use Google Maps via the “Browser” app. on PS Vita.  However, search results for point/path search may differ between the “Maps” application and Google Maps displayed on the “Browser” application. Also, search histories will be saved based on the specifications of the “Browser”, and the history saved on the “Maps” application will be deleted.

Furthermore, certain features that were available on the “Maps” application may be unavailable on Google Maps.

What do you think of these changes?

[Source: PlayStation Support 1, 2, 3, 4]

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